


Hollow

by Warthrop



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:53:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9593924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warthrop/pseuds/Warthrop
Summary: “I don’t want your pity.” Ravus voice seemed cold and distant. As if he had practiced this line inside his head and was just playing it by record now. “It was my own fault I lost my arm. I was foolish and blinded by false pride. I don’t want anyone to –““Ah, cut the crap, Ravus.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a headcanon that Ravus and Prompto might have met – even if just briefly – when Prompto has been held captive by Ardyn. Again, alternate ending and what if Ravus survived? Written by my co-author who writes “Remembrance” with me. "I'm sorry my english is bad but I love em. Pls love em with us. - S”
> 
> \- N

Sun was pouring through the small slits of the blinds right on their bed. A gold and red morning, warm and inviting. Prompto nuzzled his head close to Ravus chest, one arm wrapped around the other man. Ravus was stroking through his hair and this gentle gesture reminded him of the first time Ravus had touched him with this intimacy.  
  
***  
  
It was shortly after the incident. Where everything had been so confusing and his life a mess. That time when Noctis came back, Ardyn defeated and his throne claimed again. His story was pure chaos. He told them how Luna had died in Altissa, that Ignis eye-sight had never came back, how he was trapped for ten years, how Ravus had died only to came back as half-deamon and finally, how Noct had sacrificed himself to save their world. To get rid of the deamons and the darkness that ruled over all.  
  
It was a horrible story. And how could it have been true? Noctis was clearly alive. Confused himself as he was standing right before them while light poured from the throne chamber. How could it be true, when Ignis, Gladio and Prompto ensured that Luna had been injured and in coma, but not dead? How could it be true, when they have never faced Ravus and that Prompto hadn’t seen the “Niflheim traitor” since he had been separated from him after their captivity? Ignis had lost his left eye, yes, but his right had recovered a fair bit and he was able to see with it. It didn’t add up. Noctis story couldn’t be true, could it? But on the same note, somehow, somewhere deep in Prompto, he got the feeling that it was right. That all of this had actually happened, just far far away. Not here. Not him. Another Prompto in another time maybe. He didn’t know how the world worked and hell if he would ever find out. But oh how glad he was that Noct was alive and well. Maybe ridden of his powers; no warping for him anymore, no magic flowing through his veins, but what did it matter? He was alive. They all were. And together they would rebuild Insomnia, Lucis, Eos, all the cities and landscapes destroyed by Niflheim and the deamons to new glory. Clearing the rubble and dust and creating a new future.  
  
How ironic that Prompto found his own little precious future buried in dust and ashes, too. Luna awoke from her coma right when the light was cleansing the world. What a happy reunion she had with Noctis. All laughter, smiles and lovely glimpses to each other when they hugged and when she complimented his handsome, older features. (Duh, how right she was. Prompto might have actually been a little jealous that facial hair looked way better on Noct than on himself!) She was also one of the strongest forces to claim they needed to rebuild their homes. She wanted to help the people and didn’t want to rest until everyone was happy again. The marriage was delayed once more. Especially since she somehow sensed that her older brother was still alive and she wouldn’t wed Noct without him as her remaining family by her side.  
  
It didn’t take long to find Ravus. He was in a bad condition. Malnourished, weak, half-dead from being still held captive and having an arm attached to his flesh that was corroding and poisoning him. Prompto still remembered the haunting imagine Ravus had stroke the day he got into the hospital. Sunken cheeks and a corpse-like color, skeletal limbs and chapped lips. His hair long and thinning. He had been barely able to speak and they placed him in artificial coma right after he came in.  
  
The doctors needed to operate on him multiple times. Removing the metal arm and some of the bones that had been eaten by the rust, renewing sinews with synthetic ones and sealing the stump. No one here was scientific experienced enough to install a new base and arm to Ravus’ flesh. No one knew how the Nifs had managed to give Ravus a fully functioning metal arm that translated the orders of his brain right into the mechanical features so flawlessly. No one knew and no one had the time to study it. Well, no one besides Prompto maybe.  
  
He was no doctor, hell no, he hated seeing blood even in movies. But damn, if he loved anything then it was solving impossible mechanical puzzles. Others did yoga or go to a spa to relax, he tinkered with mechanical parts. He liked to upgrade his weapons, his camera or other technologies and so he shouldn’t be surprised that the mechanical arm of Ravus seduced him immediately.  
  
He took the old model that otherwise would simply be thrown away and tried to understand its mechanisms while Ravus was still in coma with more operations to come. The mechanisms inside the metal arm were complex, very small and very fine but also rather easy to understand. At least for Prompto. The real trouble was the socket. The link between Ravus flesh and the metal. The Niflheim engineers had somehow connected Ravus nerves, sinews and muscles with the synthetic material inside the metal arms shell to ensure the instructions to move, grab, lift or anything at all would run smoothly. It was clever. It was amazing and smart and so complex that Prompto almost wanted to give up. Almost.  
  
But then came the day Ravus woke up from coma. He looked stern and sad when he found himself bedridden, connected to machines and on a drip. He observed the stump on his shoulder whenever someone wasn’t looking, stroking his fingers over the bandages and when he was trying to stand up, he had problems finding his balance on weak legs and without the weight of his arm.  
  
Prompto wanted to do something. Anything. He was not nearly as busy as Noct or Luna and even Gladio and Ignis had more stuff to do than him with being familiar with all this royalty crap. Prompto on the other hand? He rarely had visitors or stuff to do besides the usual. So maybe it would help to keep himself and Ravus busy with idle work and banter. Just like back then, when they had been held captive and talked, to make each other feel better.  
  
He didn’t know how hard it would be to be around Ravus at first. Since he woke up he had barely talked. Not with the nurses, the doctors or even Luna herself. When Prompto chimed into Ravus room for the first time he had at least expected him to be in a slightly better mood: The war was over, the deamons gone, Ardyn ridden of existence and his little sister was safe and sound. Why shouldn’t he be happy? Instead he sat on his bed, reading stuff on his phone and looking rather dull and hollow. Just a small, curious glimpse when Prompto came to his sick bed. Prompto told him about his plans. That he wanted to build a new arm for Ravus but that it would be more complicated than imagined. He showed him his notes so far, about the parts inside, how the impulses traveled through synthetic veins, the gears and tubes. But Ravus didn’t said anything, didn’t comment on it. He answered short when Prompto asked him something but otherwise kept himself busy with his phone.  
  
He was reading news as Prompto noticed on one evening. Old news. Everything that had happened between his disappearance and his awakening in Insomnia. Prompto asked him why he was reading all that stuff and Ravus had told him that he didn’t remember a lot of what had happened in those ten years. It was one of the warm evenings where Prompto was studying a medical book, trying to figure out how many nerves were connected from the arm to the shoulder. It was full of boring words and examples and his eyelids were falling shut from time to time. A little chat would be a good distraction.  
  
“You don’t know anymore what happened to you?”, Prompto asked, keeping his finger on the side he was reading.  
  
Ravus nodded weakly.  
  
“But… do you still know that the Nifs wanted to kill you for treachery?”  
  
Again a little nod. Followed by a weak sigh. “And I thought they had succeded.”, Ravus added with a rather thin voice.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
Ravus was staring at his phone screen but he was too concentrated on his thoughts to reading anything. He furrowed his brows and his mouth was a thin line when he finally answered: “I was dead. I know it. They killed me – but then I was alive again. But I wasn’t me. Somehow?”  
  
Prompto looked puzzled while Ravus didn’t even move one muscle.  
  
“That doesn’t make sense, you know? You’re obviously alive. Well, maybe not that obviously but you have a heartbeat and a functioning brain. I’d say that counts pretty much as being alive.”  
  
Ravus didn’t said anything after that. He continued to scroll grim looking through his phone. Shoulders hanging and his head bowed.  
  
The weeks that followed were hard for Promptos progress and Ravus’ as well. Prompto had to consult with doctors about synthetic material that could be used for the human body, which could be a substitute for muscles and nerves. Prompto met with goldsmiths and armorers that could help to make the parts that would protect the machinery inside the prosthetic. He understood only half of what they all were saying but he knew it was necessary.  
  
But all of his work would be futile if Ravus wouldn’t cooperate. Lunas brother had a hard time finding back into a normal life. He had to force himself to eat properly to gain weight and strength again. His body was weakened and still healing from the operations but he had to push on, go for walks and move around so his muscles could grow again. But whenever Prompto visited Ravus to give him an update about his new arm he didn’t seem too happy or enthusiastic about it. He would nod and answer questions but never smiled or even seemed to look forward to it. Ravus sometimes didn’t touch his food or didn’t do the workout the doctors had ordered him to do. Prompto got the feeling that this grumpy dude was sabotaging their work for a reason. But hell, Prompto was persistent and if he was honest too, the tinkering with all those little mechanical and electronic parts was a lot of fun to him.  
  
“Why are you doing this?” It was a rather strange and random question. Ravus was sitting in the chair next to the window, reading a bit. This time an actual book. No news. It seemed like he had enough of that. Prompto was browsing through another mechanical issue, sometimes asking questions if Ravus knew how the Niflheim engineers did certain things in his prosthetic limb.  
  
“Doing what?”  
  
“All of this.” Ravus eyes were wandering restless over Prompto. He seemed to search for clues, for hints to an answer to his question. But he didn’t find anything. “Why do you care about my arm? Why do you want to build a new one? And why are you always here if you research anything?”  
  
“Well.” Prompto was baffled by this blunt question. On the one hand, because the ungrateful tone in Ravus voice made him angry and on the other hand because he had never really thought about the “why” in this little project. “Would you rather be without your arm for all eternity? Or favor the old one, with the dents and scratches and the rust that poisoned you?”  
  
“That’s not an answer to the question I had.” Ravus face didn’t change for a bit while he was speaking. If he was affected by anything Prompto had said, he didn’t show it for good.  
  
Prompto bristled a little with anger and turned his gaze away from Ravus back to the report he was reading. “Excuse me if I thought you would like to have a new arm, after all that shit that had happened. Besides, no one else would have the time or the knowledge to do this.”  
  
“I don’t want your pity.” Ravus voice seemed cold and distant. As if he had practiced this line inside his head and was just playing it by record now. “It was my own fault I lost my arm. I was foolish and blinded by false pride. I don’t want anyone to –“  
  
“Ah, cut the crap, Ravus.” Prompto shook his head. “I don’t pity you. I don’t care what happened and if it could have happened differently.” Ravus looked at him with raised eyebrows. Questioning Promptos honesty. “Do you still remember the time when we were captured and had the cells right next to each other?”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“It’s repaying a favor, if you like that better, for keeping me sane back then.” Prompto shrugged, while Ravus didn’t seemed to be convinced at all.  
  
“Repaying what? I didn’t do anything back then, besides talking to you.”  
  
“Exactly. Talking to you kept me from going nuts because of Ardyns mind tricks.” Ravus doubting what Ardyn said, pointing towards plot holes and ensuring Prompto that all of that talk was lie has been a little light in the dark back then.  
Ravus nodded. In that moment Prompto couldn’t tell if he was convinced or even okay with this answer, but the following weeks should show him that Ravus had found motivation. He was eating better and more than before, especially when Ignis was cooking for all of them. He would sit with them in the dining hall, next to his beloved sister and even taking part from time to time in the idle conversations. He jogged regularly now and when Prompto visited him he saw weights lying around. Ravus also started combat training with Gladio. It wasn’t really fair the first times, since Ravus didn’t have the strength to block Gladio. And with only one arm the battle wasn’t really balanced anyway, but after a while Ravus former power came back and the technique he had learned did the rest to give Gadio a good fight at least. Prompto would have been jealous of how easily Ravus gained muscle again if he wasn’t so happy about it. Because it meant that he could attach the arm without fear that Ravus’ statue couldn’t handle it.  
  
They met more regularly now that the production of the arm had made big progress. Prompto often had to measure Ravus’ other arm to calculate how long and big some tubes in the prosthetic would have to be to make it look symmetrical. Prompto sometimes forgot about Ravus existence entirely when he was drawing and measuring right next to him on his worksheets. He was engulfed in his work. Even though he would have never thought that something like that could be fun at all. That’s why he was surprised when he heard Ravus voice all quietly and a bit trembling out of nowhere:  
  
“I remember now. A bit at least.”  
  
Prompto blinked once, twice before he looked up to Ravus. He was sitting all stoic at the same table Prompto was working on. He looked down, lost in thoughts.  
  
“You remember what exactly?” Prompto asked puzzled, playing idly with the pen between his fingers.  
  
Ravus didn’t look up, but his brows furrowed while he was thinking. His mouth was hard as if he tasted something unpleasant. “The time in between. After I got executed. I think I know now.”  
  
Prompto stopped playing with his pen for some seconds. “So – what was it? What had happened?”  
  
“I was a deamon. Half a deamon.” Ravus closed his eyes for a little moment. Maybe trying to remember more, maybe to shut out the memories. Prompto didn’t know. But he looked pained.  
  
“A – wait what? Half deamon? That doesn’t make sense.”  
  
“I know.” He stroked the stump of his shoulder, the empty sleeve hanging from his left side. “I felt it creeping over me. The darkness, the numbness besides pain and anger. It felt like I was drowned in hatred, tangled and hold back by hands made out of shadows.”  
  
Prompto tried to sort his thoughts in this moment but failed horribly. He wanted to believe that Ravus had simply dreamt and that this couldn’t be true. But he knew how deamons had come into their world; he knew that they once were human. Prompto remembered how Noctis had said that they had fought a half-deamon Ravus after they had found him allegedly dead. But – “The deamons are gone. There is nothing left of this. Nothing left of this sickness. Not inside of you, not anywhere.” Ravus was looking at him now. In the dim light of his room his eyes looked both dark. No one would have noticed the odd eyes or the missing arm at his side. “Whatever had happened to you – it is over now. And it won’t come back.” Prompto was raising his hand a little bit, pulling at his glove and stroking his own wrist. White, gentle fingers over faded tattooed skin. A black mark suited for cattle and pets. “It doesn’t matter where we come from. It only matters what we are now and what we are doing with the chance we have.”  
  
Ravus gaze softened. They were quiet after that. But what was left to say? Nothing at all. A silent understanding and a little hop of Promptos heart when Ravus was smiling at him. For the first time, Prompto noticed, in all those months they had worked together.  
  
The inlay of the arm was finished. A masterpiece, Prompto might say. He was very proud of himself because he took the Niflheim model and improved it a lot. Even the medical experts and engineers he had worked with said that it was marvelous and so well thought through that it could be the blueprint for more prosthetics for people that had lost a limb. And boy, Ravus had said there was not a reason to do this! Ha. Prompto just proved him wrong. Not that he actually needed to do that. Ravus had become quite different in the last months. He was far friendlier, smiled more often now and even talked about stuff with Prompto that wasn’t the war or their work. They sometimes ordered take-out meals when Prompto forgot the time over his work. He showed Ravus games for his phone or places worth visiting in Insomnia. He helped him to understand the political situation better because Ravus had set himself the goal to get back into politics to help Noctis and his sister with the rebuilding and stabilizing of the country. A noble path, Prompot thought, and he was happy to help him with the new arm.  
  
Ravus also looked healthier. His hair was cut neatly and had grown thick again, even though more white spots appeared on his temples now. But otherwise he looked rather young again. When he was malnourished and worn from the war and dark times he had appeared like a 70 year old man, too weak to lift his own body off the bed. Now he had muscles filling his clothes again, strong legs and an even stronger right arm. His cheeks were fuller again, emphasizing his prominent cheekbones and giving the lips a more full and tempting look. Prompto also blamed his genetics for the lack of wrinkles on his face. Luna was the same, almost ageless next to Noctis. Ravus was handsome. Handsome enough for the boulevard magazines to crown him “hottest bachelor of Insomnia”. (And yes, Prompto had teased him with that quite a lot.)  
  
A little later though Prompto wished he would have never heard about this magazine article because it was all he could focus on when he was meeting Ravus. He examined him all the time, trying to see what the journalists had seen in him. And he had to agree: His eyes were in fact nicely mysterious, his tall frame impressive, his voice deep and he did indeed seem like a misunderstood guy. He understood why teenage girls would swoon because of him. What set Prompto to the edge was something else. He came to Ravus to measure the stump and how big the link to his prosthetic would need to be. Something he could not do while Ravus was dressed.  
  
What a dumb, dumb mistake. Prompto felt the temperature inside his body rising when Ravus took off his shirt, turning his left side to Prompto. And there it was; a nice muscular chest, biceps, and a flat tummy with a hint of six-pack. Scars on fair skin and no hair at all. This bastard shaved neatly and looked smoking hot like that! Prompto got the urge to squeeze this soft looking muscle boobs a little and to bury his face at Ravus skin. He even smelled amazing and the skin around all the scar tissue of his shoulder stump felt warm and soft.  
  
_Shit. Shit shit shit._ Was Promptos only thought when he tried to keep himself busy with measuring everything and writing down the notes on his paper. He had a crush. He had a big, fat, teenager-like crush on Ravus. All occupied with his thoughts and not showing how much he wanted to stay like this a little longer with Ravus, he felt a pet on his head.  
  
Prompto paused for a moment and looked up, right into Ravus face. Ravus had his right hand raised and placed on Promptos head, fingers softy stroking through his hair. It took him several seconds to notice what he was doing and to respond to Promptos puzzled look. And he seemed … embarrassed? He stopped mid movement and took his hand quickly away.  
  
“Sorry.”, he muttered quietly. He didn’t dare to look at Prompto anymore. “Your hair looks so soft.”  
  
What. What? Prompto wasn’t able to answer. Instead he stared at Ravus stump again, trying to measure anything, but he forgot the number the same time he looked at the measuring tape. His thoughts circled without direction or intension. He tried to find a plausible reason as to why Ravus would pet his head. Why Ravus would like to touch Promptos hair. He didn’t find any.  
  
Prompto giggled quietly, smiling for a few seconds down. “Are you lonely?”, he finally asked without moving anymore.  
  
Ravus breathed deeply. “Sometimes”, he said. “When I see Luna and Noctis. When I see how happy they are.”  
  
“Me, too.” Promptos voice had become quiet and small. As if this room wouldn’t allow more of them. The walls would creepy closer, clasping around them till none of these ideas were left. “Noctis and Luna are happy together. So are Ignis and Gladio with their lives. Sometimes it’s like I don’t belong here. I feel lost. And lonely.”  
  
When he looked up at Ravus his eyes were fixated on him. One light, one dark, filled with a bit of sadness, of being left behind and not knowing where to belong. And still. A little bit of hope. A bit of love.  
  
Ravus stroke softly through Promptos hair again to the back of his head, down his neck and back to the front, caressing his cheek tenderly. Goosebumps crept over Promptos skin and a warm, tingly feeling prickled underneath it. He leaned closer to Ravus and kissed him. First soft and tender, but as soon as Ravus was wrapping his arm around him, he crept on his lap and kissed him with more passion. And he never wanted to stop. Not now. Not in their future.

  


***  
  
“Why are you giggling?” Ravus asked with a little yawn and a kiss on Promptos head. Their legs were tangled and the sheets all messed up.  
  
“Just remembering the first time we kissed.” Prompto said quietly, kissing the soft skin in front of him and wrapping his arm around Ravus hip. “And how embarrassed we had been after two hours of smooching around on the couch.”  
  
Ravus chuckled a bit: “Didn’t stopped us from doing it again.”  
  
“Oh hell no. As if I would have stopped after that.”

  



End file.
